Truce
by jazzmin
Summary: Irons and Ian, the early years. Irons' punishment of Ian's disobedience has unforseen consequences for them both.


Title: Truce  
  
Author: Jazzmin  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Disclamer: The characters in this story are the property of Top Cow and TNT. No infringements of their rights is intended.  
  
Spoilers: None. The story takes place many years before the events in the series.  
  
Warnings: One brief incident of violence to a child.  
  
Summary: My take on the relationship between Irons and Ian.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
TRUCE  
  
  
  
  
  
They were at war.  
  
As usual.  
  
And he was losing.  
  
As always.  
  
He stood before Irons, his sweater and his pants streaked with mud and grass. He had tried to clean them off, but he knew that Irons had marked each stain the moment he had been hauled into the great room. Now, he tried to draw his nine and a half years of existence into as small a package as possible as Irons loomed over him with sinister promise.  
  
"You left the grounds again. After I expressly forbade it."  
  
Foolishly, he believed if he could only explain, it would be all right. "Yes, sir. But sir, there was a game-"  
  
Irons struck him across the face.  
  
He would not cry. On his hands and knees, he stared at the swirls of the carpet through a blur of pain. And licked at his upper lip to see if there was any blood.  
  
Irons picked him up by the collar, holding him at arms' length. "I did not create you to play games. And I will not tolerate willful disobedience. Do you understand me?"  
  
Chin set stubbornly, he would not answer.  
  
Irons released him. They stood thus for a long span of heartbeats, until, with calculated coldness, Irons told him,  
  
"This incident has caused me to reconsider my plans for you. You know that there have been others before you. They were flawed. I thought that with you, I had finally achieved my ends, but now I see there is still room for improvement."  
  
A chill of fear shot through him.  
  
"A warrior is measured by his honor. And that honor lies in obedience to his oath and to his master. You have failed to show me either."  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"A warrior without honor has no master, and thus no place, but is condemned to wander forever in the darkness. Is this to be your fate? To be cast out into the darkness?"  
  
Irons knew his fear of darkness. "Sir, I-"  
  
Irons turned away. "I have more pressing matters than you at the moment. Wait for me by the fire. You may spend the time contemplating your future."  
  
He stumbled across the room to the hearth, falling to his knees beside Fenris, his favorite of the two wolfhounds. Used to providing comfort, Fenris lay patiently as he pressed his aching face into the rough coat. He had been told to contemplate his future, but every fiber of his being was focused on the man at the other end of the room. He heard Irons telephone the Doctor, overriding the other's unheard comments.  
  
"I don't care whether he's old enough. I want this begun immediately. I need to know now whether or not it will work."  
  
Time passed, and the fire burned low, but he stayed as he was, one arm tight around Fenris. Until he heard Irons say,  
  
"Come here, Ian."  
  
He stood small and alone as Irons asked,  
  
"Have you considered your position?"  
  
"Yes, sir." He could barely hear his own voice.  
  
"The Doctor will be here shortly for some...procedures. You will cooperate with whatever he asks of you. And from this moment, you will obey me in all things, without question. Am I understood?"  
  
It was desperation, not willfulness, that gave him the courage to utter, "But sir, can't I see them again? They're my friends."  
  
"Friends?" Irons was merciless. "And what will you tell them when they ask about your parents, hmm? Or your siblings? Or why your hands are always gloved? Do you think they will still count themselves as your friends when they learn what you are?"  
  
Everything began welling in his throat.  
  
"Friendship is not for one such as you, nor is common society. You are life without a soul, an existence with no purpose but mine."  
  
"You made me this way!"  
  
Taken completely aback, Irons stared down at him. But he could no longer see. The world was dissolving, vanishing within the tears that came flooding up from where Irons said he had no soul.  
  
Irons' voice sounded through his misery. "I made you for a greater destiny-- to serve me, and through me, the Witchblade."  
  
He did not want a greater destiny. Irons had been wrong; there had been no questions, no examination of his existence. For a few precious hours, he had been only Ian.  
  
"There will be no more of these excursions. I want your solemn oath on it. Do I have it?"  
  
Whatever he answered, Irons would see that there were no more such hours. He nodded through the tears. And felt an aching void open up within him.  
  
The rest of that day was like some disconnected dream. The Doctor came, poking at him, and taking samples from him, and evading all his questions with bland joviality. He hardly felt any of the needles. It was as though with one stroke, Irons had stripped him of any substance, of any connection to the world around him. He had no soul. It must be true; Irons had said so, and Irons had created him. As he sat on the examination table, he looked down at his chest, trying to figure out where the hole was. He could not see any difference, but he knew now he was not like anyone else, not like Irons, or the Doctor, or even La Roche, the new bodyguard. And that it was more than the legacy of the Witchblade that set him apart. He had no soul.  
  
He was not real.  
  
When the Doctor finally began the procedure, it hurt. A lot. It would be worth it, the Doctor told him. They were going to give him the memories of the ones who had come before him, something they had never before tried. He would be the first. And anyway, Irons wanted it done. Hardly hearing the Doctor, he bore everything stoically, for what good would it do to cry? He was nothing more than a soulless experiment. No one would care, or comfort him, because he was not real. Irons had told him so.  
  
He had no soul.  
  
Then came the final needle. And it was over.  
  
* * *  
  
Someone was carrying him.  
  
It was La Roche, the new bodyguard. He did not like La Roche, but it was as though his body was drifting away from him. He could not lift his head from La Roche's broad shoulder, or move the arm that dangled down the bodyguard's back. As he fought to keep from drifting away altogether, he heard Parsons, another of the security team, ask,  
  
"What's wrong with him now?"  
  
"Dr. Frankenstein's been sticking needles into him all afternoon."  
  
"Poor little bugger."  
  
"Hell, the little freak just sat there like he didn't even feel it."  
  
"How did you get stuck with him?"  
  
"When Immo was done, he shot him up with something, and told me to put him to bed." La Roche shifted him roughly. "I hired on here as a security specialist, not-"  
  
The voices stopped. And even through the haze, he knew that Irons was there.  
  
"How is he?"  
  
La Roche's voice completely changed. "He's OK, Mr. Irons. The Doc just gave him something to make him sleep. I'm taking him upstairs."  
  
Someone touched his face-Irons. He tried to speak, but the words would not form. Irons stepped away.  
  
"La Roche."  
  
"Yes, sir?"  
  
"What you're carrying is the result of several million dollars worth of genetic research. If you wish to remain in my employ, you will remember this."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
On the way up the stairs, he heard La Roche ask, "Is this Irons' kid?"  
  
"Who can tell with Irons? If it is his brat, you'd think he'd treat him like it."  
  
"Don't waste your sympathy. Like I told you, the little freak doesn't feel anything. Makes you wonder what Dr. Frankenstein created with those millions of dollars."  
  
Parsons opened the door to his room, and La Roche carried him in, throwing him down on the bed without bothering to pull down the covers. He lay there, fighting to stay conscious.  
  
Parsons again. "Wait. He's got some special light we're supposed to put on."  
  
"I'm not a nursemaid. If he's that valuable, let the Doc come up and take care of him. Or Irons."  
  
La Roche pulled a corner of the coverlet over him as a concession to Irons' admonition. Then they left him.  
  
He tried to get up. But his legs and arms had drifted away. And so he gave up and followed them....  
  
* * *  
  
He woke in total darkness, with the memory of his own death.  
  
No light. There was supposed to be a light. But there was no light. And he did not know where he was--he did not know who he was!--except he remembered he was dead. Flailing, he tried to get up, but something was tangling his arms and legs. And there was no light! Without it, all the memories came flooding into the darkness, and he could not tell which were his and which were the Others. Or even if he was alive. Still entangled, he began crying for the light, for someone, anyone. For Irons. But no one came. Because he was dead, and they had cast him out into the darkness-  
  
A light came on. Followed by a voice demanding, "What are you howling about?"  
  
Irons stood in the doorway, robe half-belted, silver hair rumpled. He blinked up through the tears.  
  
"Am I dead?"  
  
Irons did not answer. Turning to someone in the hall, Irons ordered, "Bring me a phone." Then Irons came to him, hissing in a low voice, "Stop it! You're hurting my head!"  
  
On his hands and knees, still tangled in the coverlet, he looked up at Irons. "Which one am I? Sir? Which one?"  
  
A burly man came in with a phone and plugged it into the wall. He knew the man, and he did not know the man, and his distress increased, his body now racked with dry sobs. The burly man asked Irons,  
  
"What's wrong with him, sir?"  
  
"It's just a nightmare."  
  
Only, it was more than that. Irons got on the phone with the Doctor, snarling, "I don't care how critical it is that you monitor the samples! There is another problem here-I'm surprised you can't hear it all the way down there!" A pause. Then, "Something familiar? You're sure that will calm him down?" Another pause. "You had better be correct. I do not want to lose this one."  
  
As Irons talked, he looked around his room, seeing some things he remembered, but missing many others. "My rabbit. Where's my rabbit?" He knocked the pillows to the floor, searching frantically through the bedclothes.  
  
Irons hung up the phone. "You don't have a rabbit."  
  
"Yes, I do! Where's Benjie? I want Benjie!"  
  
Irons caught his arms.  
  
There was a stricken look on Irons' normally controlled features. And in that moment of contact, the image came, of Irons laying a brown and tan stuffed rabbit into a coffin containing a small, dark-haired form-  
  
"I'm dead!" Wild-eyed, he cried, "I'm dead, I'm dead-"  
  
"You're not dead! No one could make this much noise and be dead!" But Irons was still shaken. Pulling the coverlet free, Irons wrapped it around him, telling him, "We'll wait downstairs for the Doctor."  
  
The burly man picked him up. And he knew him, but he could not remember his name. And he did not like him. "Where's Wilson?"  
  
Irons was following them. "Wilson is gone."  
  
Many things were gone. But the great room looked as it should. The burly man set him down at Irons' direction.  
  
"Look. Here are your soldiers. We set them up together, do you remember? The Battle of Waterloo?"  
  
He stared down at the figures massed across the paper maché landscape. After a long moment, he reached for one of the cavalrymen. "This is one of the new ones."  
  
"Yes."  
  
Irons looked relieved. But the cavalryman began shaking in his hand. And then his whole frame was shaking within the cocoon of the coverlet.  
  
"Now what is it?"  
  
"I'm cold." The soldiers were fading. With some wonderment, he declared, "I feel like when I died.."  
  
* * *  
  
He was sitting cross-legged before the fire in the great room. All the other lights in the room were out, and neither Irons nor La Roche was there. But he was not alone. There were others clustered around him in a semi-circle around the hearth. Three of them were only shadows, vague shapes against the flickering light. The fourth was a boy of about five, with dark, curling hair, and an open, friendly face. A face that was very familiar.  
  
"I'm Ian," the boy told him. When he spoke, the boy sounded like Parsons, who came from England.  
  
Ian was dressed in a sweater with dogs on it. He recognized the sweater, and did not understand why Ian had it, for it was his favorite. Then he remembered he had never had a sweater with dogs on it, that Irons would not allow him such childish things. To cover his confusion, he declared in turn,  
  
"I'm Ian, too."  
  
"I know. So are they." The boy pointed to the shapes.  
  
"Why can't I see them better?"  
  
"They weren't here very long. I was the first one that worked."  
  
Some memories were falling into place. "You're the one I mostly remember."  
  
Ian nodded. "When I died, he made them save part of my brain. So the next one would have my memories and be just like me."  
  
"Am I like you?"  
  
"No. You're better. They used more of her to make you. You have more of the Witchblade."  
  
He was curious. "Did you see pictures in your mind about what was going to happen to people?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Could you talk to them inside their heads? And hear them inside yours?"  
  
"No. I told you--you're better."  
  
"Didn't that make Mr. Irons mad?"  
  
"No. He never got mad at me. He used to come up to the nursery every day to see me, and read me stories, and ask Wilson how I was doing with my lessons."  
  
A pang of jealousy stabbed through the empty place in his chest. "Did they teach you how to fight?"  
  
Ian shook his head. "Mr. Irons used to tell me about the Witchblade, and the knights, and how one day I would be a great warrior. But then I died."  
  
He recalled the stricken look on Irons' face. "I think it made him very sad when you died."  
  
"He would be sad if you died, too."  
  
"No, he wouldn't. Right now, he's deciding whether or not to keep me."  
  
Ian drew closer. "They're trying to make another one."  
  
"I know. Doctor Frankenstein wouldn't tell me, but I can always read him."  
  
The shadow figures also drew nearer.  
  
Ian looked behind them into the darkness. "He's coming."  
  
The other Ians writhed, and he felt their fear. Then they were gone. Ian drew still closer, his small face agitated.  
  
"Who's coming?"  
  
"The next one." The agitation changed to fear. "He's not like us. He's from the darkness."  
  
The fire gutted, as though tormented by an unfelt wind. And a shadow began to form at the edge of the hearth, darker than the surrounding shadows, not an absence of light but something of substance. He felt Ian's fear stab into his heart as well.  
  
"He's not like us!" Ian repeated. Then Ian was gone, leaving him alone. The shadow grew still darker.  
  
He jerked back as another mind surged into his. Thoughts without words or images flooded through him, carried on a will stronger even than Irons', thoughts of envy, and jealousy, and hatred. For him, for Irons, for all life. Thoughts truly out of a darkness he had long feared, but had until this moment only imagined. He reeled from them, unable to push them out of his mind. Just before the thoughts overwhelmed him, he felt the next one's laugh of triumph....  
  
* * *  
  
He was back. The cavalryman was still clutched in his hand, but he could not see Irons. Then he realized it was Irons who was holding him as the Doctor knelt beside them.  
  
"Ian, do you know who I am?"  
  
He scowled. "Doctor Frankenstein."  
  
"Doctor Immo. How are you feeling?"  
  
"Dead."  
  
Irons' voice. "Stop talking about being dead! You're not dead."  
  
He shook his head. "I remember."  
  
"You're going to be remembering a lot of things," the Doctor told him. "But not all of them will have happened to you. After a while, you'll be able to sort them out."  
  
Irons again. "And how long is 'a while'? I don't want to be awakened at two a.m. again with him screaming inside my head."  
  
"I don't know, Kenneth. We've never tried this before. We can't even be sure what memories he does or doesn't have. Or how long they'll last." Carefully. "That's why I advised waiting until he was older. When he'd be better able to assimilate everything." The Doctor took something from his bag.  
  
"Ian, I'm going to give you a shot to make you sleep again. When you wake up this time, I promise things will make a lot more sense."  
  
Irons. "We can't keep sedating him."  
  
"This is just to allow his subconscious to process the new material."  
  
"Why didn't you give him enough to keep him under to begin with?"  
  
"He never reacts the same way twice to any medication. You know that. It's one of the side effects of the Witchblade. That, and your two a.m. headache."  
  
He did not want to go back up to his room, to the darkness. But before he could protest, the needle pricked his arm, and he began to drift again. As the room started dissolving, he reminded both of them.  
  
"I want Benjie."  
  
* * *  
  
The next time he awoke, it was daylight, and Parsons was staring down at him. He knew it was Parsons, but when he sat up, he saw that someone had moved his bed. "It's wrong."  
  
Parsons was just hanging up the phone. "What is?"  
  
"My bed. It's supposed to be over there." He hung over the edge, looking beneath it. "Where's my rabbit?"  
  
Parsons did not answer. "Are you all right? If you're all right, Mr. Irons wants you downstairs."  
  
How could he be all right? He had no soul.  
  
"After all the aggro you gave him, I wouldn't give him any more reason to get pissed off at you. He's in a bloody rotten mood. He was up here five or six times last night checking on you. Right now, he's down there reaming out La Roche about the security cameras."  
  
Parsons waited for him to wash and get dressed. But someone had moved his clothes around, too; he couldn't find his favorite sweater, the one with the dogs on it. Finally, Parsons just pulled a long-sleeved top over his head and dragged him out the door. In the day's light, the other memories were still there, shadows at the edges of his thoughts, but he was able to hold most of them at bay, as the Doctor had promised.  
  
The soreness in his neck and his arm led him to ask, "Is Dr. Frankenstein here?"  
  
"You mean Dr. Immo? Yes, he's here. Irons won't let him leave until he checks you over."  
  
He sighed. More needles.  
  
Irons was standing by the fireplace when he entered the great room. He expected to be once more in disgrace. Irons insisted that he always be neatly and correctly dressed, but he was clad in a top he had outgrown, his hair still damp and rumpled from where Parsons had hastily rubbed a towel over his head. And he was not wearing his gloves. But Irons merely said,  
  
"Come here."  
  
He obeyed.  
  
"How are you feeling?"  
  
"Hungry."  
  
"I'll have them bring you some breakfast." Irons studied him. "Do you know who you are?"  
  
Innocently. "I'm Ian."  
  
Irons started to continue, but stopped and looked at him narrowly.  
  
He quickly dropped his gaze to the floor.  
  
The Doctor appeared to save him. "Do you know where you are?"  
  
"On the planet Earth. The third planet from the sun."  
  
"I meant, do you know where you are as far as this house-"  
  
Irons interrupted. "He knows exactly where he is and what he's doing. More so, I think, than you."  
  
To his surprise, he was allowed to eat at Irons' own table, a rare privilege even when he was in Irons' good graces. A servant brought in a tray containing the same meal he was given every morning, one dictated by Irons: oatmeal with a parsimonious pat of butter, milk, and some kind of fruit, today a banana. He sat politely as the tray was set before him, but he was watching Irons out of the corner of his eye, as was the Doctor. The crisis with the security cameras was still going on; in another moment, Irons left the room to berate La Roche in person.  
  
The second Irons was gone, he dumped the oatmeal into the wastebasket and wiped out the bowl with his napkin. The Doctor reached into his bag and pulled out a box of Cocoa Puffs. He grabbed it, and refilled the bowl. Then he knelt on the chair seat and shoveled in Cocoa Puffs as fast as he could chew them.  
  
Immo watched with indulgent horror. "Leave some room for the banana."  
  
"No."  
  
"No? What does that mean?"  
  
He threw the banana into the wastebasket after the oatmeal.  
  
"I thought you liked bananas."  
  
"Maybe. But I'm not eating that one."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because I don't have a soul. And that means I don't have to do anything I don't want to."  
  
"Who said you don't have a soul?"  
  
"Mr. Irons. And he should know-he gave me life." Through a mouthful of cereal he explained, "I don't belong to any parents, or family, or country. Or god. I only belong to Mr. Irons. So I only have to do what he tells me. And as long as he doesn't tell me not to, I can do anything I want."  
  
"Ian, there's still right and wrong."  
  
"No, there isn't. Not for me. I don't have a soul. I won't go to heaven, and I won't go to hell. I'll just-go. And when I die, you'll chop up my brain, and give my memories to the next one, and that will be the end of me." He poured himself another bowl of Cocoa Puffs.  
  
Irons returned unexpectedly.  
  
"What is that he's eating?"  
  
The Doctor decided to brazen it out. "Cocoa Puffs. We have a private arrangement. If he cooperates when I'm here, and holds still when he's supposed to, he gets Cocoa Puffs." Glancing down at him, "Of course, now he tells me he no longer has to do anything he doesn't want to because you told him he has no soul."  
  
"What does a soul have to do with eating properly?"  
  
"He's reasoned it out very convincingly. If he has no soul, he has no need to adhere to any code of right or wrong, or any morality except your wishes. Which means, if you don't forbid it, he can do exactly as he pleases. Or not." Carefully. "Did you tell him he has no soul?"  
  
Irons looked away. "I can't remember everything I say to him."  
  
He piped up. "I remember. You told me I was life without a soul, an existence with no purpose other than the one you gave me."  
  
"Kenneth...?"  
  
"I was speaking metaphorically."  
  
He piped up again. "I know what a metaphor is. You were speaking quite literally."  
  
The Doctor tried to reason with him. "Ian, no one has ever been able to prove or disprove the existence of the human soul. I had something to do with your creation as well. And I think you have one."  
  
He was watching Irons. "Mr. Irons says I don't."  
  
Irons actually appeared uncomfortable. "We will table this discussion for another time. As for you..." Irons walked to the table, looming over him. "I believe I told you to cooperate with whatever the Doctor asked of you."  
  
He looked up, again all innocence. "Maybe you told one of the others?"  
  
"I remember quite clearly. I told you."  
  
Reluctantly, he fished the banana out of the wastebasket.  
  
Irons eyed his bowl with disgust. "It is obvious the Doctor is not a nutritionist. You know you are forbidden any kind of processed sugar."  
  
Immo came to his rescue once more. "It's only one bowl, Kenneth. And only when I've put him through a lengthy exam or procedure."  
  
Irons gave the Doctor a dire look. "Very well. I'll concede to your medical wisdom and allow it. But only under those conditions. And only one bowl." Seeing La Roche enter the room carrying a roll of blueprints and a security camera, Irons walked away.  
  
The second Irons' back was turned, he grabbed the box of Cocoa Puffs and managed to fill the bowl a third time before the Doctor snatched it away.  
  
When he had finished, the Doctor insisted on shining lights in his eyes and testing his reflexes. And lecturing him. "I know what Mr. Irons told you. But maybe instead of assuming you don't have a soul, you should assume you have one. Just in case."  
  
"It doesn't matter. Whether I have one or not, you'll still chop up my brain when I'm dead."  
  
"Stop talking about chopping up brains! I don't chop anything up, I just take tissue samples. And anyway, you'll undoubtedly outlive me."  
  
Like a sudden brush of a wing, the knowledge came to him. "No, I won't. And you will cut up my head."  
  
The Doctor was jotting his observations into a notebook. "I don't think not having a soul means you'll die young. And I've told you a hundred times to stay out of my medical bag! There's nothing in there to interest you."  
  
Everything in there interested him. He tried to see around the Doctor as Immo shut the bag. "Do you have anyone else's chopped up brain in there?"  
  
"No!" Wearily. "Why don't you go find something quiet to do? I have to speak with Mr. Irons."  
  
About him, no doubt. About sticking more needles into him. And how since he had no soul, they could do anything they wanted to him. Just like the other ones. Brooding over this, he climbed the stairs to the balcony overlooking the great room, being quiet as the Doctor had instructed. Because he was supposed to do what the Doctor instructed. No matter how much it hurt. Below, he could see Irons and the Doctor conferring, with La Roche hovering at a respectful distance. Irons was not paying any attention to him. None of them were paying any attention to him. Because he was being quiet. But it would just be a matter of time before one of them looked up to the balcony.  
  
It was Irons.  
  
"Ian! Get down off that railing!"  
  
He continued to balance along the rail. "I'm practicing."  
  
Irons gestured to La Roche, and the bodyguard started to edge up the stairs. Irons himself never moved, his features set in a white mask. The Doctor followed along below him, arms outstretched, imploring him in a voice full of false calm.  
  
"You can practice down here. If you keep doing that, you could fall."  
  
"If I do, you'll just put me in a box. Then you'll make another one."  
  
"But it wouldn't be you."  
  
La Roche was inching closer.  
  
"Yes, it would. You'll inject him with my chopped up brain, and then he'll have all my memories and be just like me." With prescience. "Only you won't like him very much."  
  
"I told you to stop talking about chopping up brains!" Forcing calm once more. "Ian, you don't want to die, do you?"  
  
"I don't care. I'm not afraid." As La Roche drew still nearer, he halted, looking across to Irons as he extended his arms. Making sure Irons was looking at him. "Dying isn't anything. It's just like falling." He let himself lean forward into the empty space.  
  
La Roche barely caught him.  
  
He was hauled back down the stairs, hanging half upside-down under La Roche's arm. La Roche set him down before Irons.  
  
"Leave us," Irons told the other two.  
  
There was a deathly calm across Irons' features. "You should not have been walking on that railing. You could have fallen."  
  
"La Roche caught me."  
  
"I know he did. I also noted how precisely you timed your swan dive. If he had been a second or two off, you would have broken your neck."  
  
He stared sullenly down at the carpet. "I don't care."  
  
Irons walked to the other side of the room. From the corner of his eye, he saw Irons take the katana down from its stand and unsheathe the blade. Irons returned, reached out, and ruffled his curls almost affectionately. Then, Irons' fingers tightened painfully. He yelped as Irons pulled him forward onto his knees and held the blade to his neck.  
  
"So. You do not fear death."  
  
"No." It was the truth.  
  
"Do you fear me?"  
  
"Yes." It was also the truth.  
  
"Good." Irons released him and took the blade away. "Stand up."  
  
He did as he was told.  
  
"I want an explanation for this behavior." When he did not answer, Irons said, "I'm waiting. And that is not something I do patiently."  
  
"I want to know if I have one!" he blurted.  
  
"If you have what?"  
  
"A soul! You told me I don't. But the Doctor says I do. And he had as much to do with creating me as you did."  
  
"Do you think I would lie to you?"  
  
"Yes." As Irons blinked at that, he demanded, "Do I or don't I have one?"  
  
"Why is it suddenly so vital that you have an answer?"  
  
"Because."  
  
"Because. That's a convincing argument." Irons gazed down at him. "This is not a subject that has ever troubled me. Would it be such a terrible thing if you didn't have one?"  
  
"If I don't have a soul, then I'm not real! I'm just a shadow. It only looks like something's there, but it's not. And when I'm not, you'll just take my memories and give them to the next one, and he'll be Ian Nottingham! And no one will ever talk about me, or remember me. Just like the other ones. Because I wasn't real."  
  
Irons was still holding the sword. "If I were to strike you, you would feel pain, no? Does that not prove you're real?"  
  
"No. Pain is an illusion. Even though it hurts." Getting more distraught. "I could already be dead, and this could just be the next one remembering me. Like I remember them."  
  
"And what do you expect me to do? Summon the nursery magic fairy to make you real?" Sarcastically. "Do you think you are a velveteen rabbit?"  
  
He didn't understand. "I can't find my rabbit."  
  
(It was a book).  
  
Ian was sitting on the arm of Irons' chair, swinging his legs. (He used to read it to me. It was my favorite.)  
  
"Who was the rabbit?" he asked Ian.  
  
(A stuffed animal. Like Benjie. In the book, they threw him out, but he turned into a real rabbit and ran away. And was happy.)  
  
"Did somebody give him a soul? Is that how he became real?"  
  
(He became real because somebody loved him.).  
  
"Were you real?"  
  
Ian nodded.  
  
Irons stared at him. "Who are you speaking to?"  
  
"Ian. He was telling me who the rabbit was. But he's gone now." He looked back to Irons. And waited.  
  
Irons took a long time to speak. "You want me to tell you whether or not you have a soul. What if I tell you that I simply don't know?"  
  
"You know everything."  
  
"It would seem so to you." Irons decided. "Here. Take this."  
  
Irons gave him the sword.  
  
"What do you feel?"  
  
"All the ones who carried this. Their spirits."  
  
"Its soul."  
  
He nodded.  
  
"They are long gone, and yet their essence remains within this blade."  
  
He nodded again.  
  
"I gave you life, but even I cannot give or deny you a soul. But I can give you this sword. If you wield it honorably in my service, someday it will hold the essence of your spirit as well. It is the only immortality I can promise you."  
  
Wide-eyed now with excitement, he held the sword up and watched light ripple down the steel.  
  
Irons said, "It has not been drawn either in my defense or yours. Therefore, it must draw the wielder's blood before it is returned to its sheath. Or it will be dishonored."  
  
"I know that." He laid it across his palm.  
  
"Easy! You will cut your hand off."  
  
He made the cut, and Irons gave him a square of silk to clean the blade. When it was back in its sheath, Irons said, "I will have it placed in your room." Sternly, "You will not frighten the servants with it. Or La Roche and Parsons. It is a blade of honor, and you will treat it as such. And you will stay off that railing. Am I understood?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Irons raised an eyebrow, and he hastily added, "Sir."  
  
"You disarrayed your soldiers when you fainted. If you can replace them correctly, I will have Parsons take you to the shooting range tomorrow."  
  
Obediently, he went to the table and began righting the figurines. The Doctor and La Roche returned, both giving him looks that said they were surprised to see him calmly playing with his soldiers. And still in one piece.  
  
(Those were my soldiers.)  
  
Ian was back.  
  
"Mr. Irons gave me the katana," he told Ian.  
  
(It's not a soul.)  
  
No. It was not. "Did he ever give you a sword?"  
  
(No. He gave me Benjie.)  
  
Ian slipped off the chair arm, going to gaze up at the railing.  
  
(That's where I fell.)  
  
"I know. I remember." And he had made sure Irons remembered, too.  
  
Ian came back to the table.  
  
"Did Mr. Irons ever tell you about the Battle of Waterloo?"  
  
Ian shook his head.  
  
Happy to have a companion, he began to detail the positions of the various armies. The Doctor watched him with a mixture of bewilderment and apprehension.  
  
"Who is he talking to?"  
  
Irons shot the Doctor a sardonic look. "He's talking to Ian. Can't you tell?"  
  
"That could be an encouraging development. Imagining one of the others might be a sign he's coping with the infused memories."  
  
"Are you certain he's not conversing with higher realms?"  
  
"I don't believe in ghosts."  
  
"You believe in souls." Then Irons noticed him once more. "And what would you say he's coping with now?"  
  
Having grown bored with the Napoleonic Wars, he was showing Ian how many handstands he could do. Until Irons grabbed him by one leg.  
  
"Stay in this chair until I tell you to get up! And be quiet."  
  
"Can I talk to Ian?"  
  
"If I were you, I would do as little as possible to remind me of your existence."  
  
The Doctor had other concerns. "Physically, he's superior to any of his predecessors. And brighter. But he's very young emotionally. And his social development is not where it could be. For one thing, he's very shy around women."  
  
"He sees plenty of women."  
  
"They're either servants, or one of your...many interests. And he doesn't get to play with any children his own age."  
  
"Would you like me to buy him some?"  
  
"I'm serious, Kenneth. He needs companions. What about the boys he was telling me about? He said they were playing ball."  
  
"Did he tell you that every time one of the other boys came to bat, he made him see the ball just slightly other than where it was? So that none of them even got a hit when he was pitching? Imagine explaining that to the other Little League parents."  
  
He forgot Irons' admonition. "I was winning!"  
  
They ignored him.  
  
"He's old enough for you to consider sending him away to school."  
  
He shouted more loudly. "I was!"  
  
"And what school would provide the special training he needs? That I need him to have?"  
  
The Doctor was unrelenting. "You have more money than God. You could simply buy the school and dictate the curriculum."  
  
Irons looked up from the blueprints. "That is true. Very well, I'll give it some thought. As for you, Ian-" Irons stopped.  
  
Irons had told him to stay in the chair. Irons had not said anything about how. At the moment, he was lying upside-down with his feet hooked over the arms and his head almost touching the floor, his shirt rucked up and half his stomach showing. As he made a British and a French infantryman fight with each other, Irons' legs appeared in his field of vision.  
  
With deathly patience, Irons asked, "Ian, how many bowls of Cocoa Puffs did you have?"  
  
"Three." He held up three fingers, then reversed them so Irons could see. "Trois. Tres. Drei. Three strikes and you're out." He went on babbling.  
  
"Three." With a hard glance at the Doctor. "Yes, you had this situation under control. Did it ever cross your thoughts that there might be a logical reason for my proscription?"  
  
Wisely, the Doctor did not attempt an answer.  
  
Irons jerked him to his feet, holding him at arm's length as though he were an animal that had rolled in something unpleasant. Marching him to the hapless La Roche, Irons ordered,  
  
"Summon Parsons."  
  
As he and La Roche glared at each other, he could hear the Doctor trying to mitigate Irons' displeasure.  
  
"This was my fault."  
  
"Yes, it was. But that does not make his behavior any more palatable."  
  
"You weren't always so inflexible. I remember you were quite fond of his predecessor."  
  
"And we know the folly of that, don't we? Like making a pet of a hunting dog." Irons stalked to the fireplace. "I'm surprised your work hasn't taught you to avoid any sentimental attachments to your subjects."  
  
"Kenneth, he's just a child."  
  
"I am far more aware of who and what he is than you are, Doctor. It would be best if you confine yourself to his physical condition and leave the rest to me."  
  
When Parsons appeared, Irons ordered, "Take him down to the gym, and let him bounce off the walls until the sugar burns out of his system." With a hard look to the Doctor. "Next time you feel compelled to admonish me for being too strict with him, remember this moment. And as for you," Irons thrust the security camera at La Roche, "see if you can figure out which end you're supposed to point at the subject!"  
  
Irons glared at him once more-maybe because he was doing cartwheels. Hastily, he righted himself and followed Parsons obediently out the door. Then resumed them in the hallway, badgering Parsons the whole way to the gym to let him see Parsons' new Walther.  
  
* * *  
  
Much later, clad in pajamas and robe, he eased open the door of the library and peered in. The only illumination came from the security lights; thinking that the rest of the household, and most particularly, Irons, was asleep, he slipped inside.  
  
Irons' voice proved the folly of that assumption. "Why are you still up at this hour?"  
  
He froze as Irons' tall form emerged from the shadows by the window.  
  
"I've come to get a book."  
  
So far, he was safe. Reading was the one area in which Irons allowed him free rein. "There is a book on Napoleon on that table. I was going to give it to you tomorrow."  
  
"I don't want to read about him. He lost."  
  
Irons raised an eyebrow. "Would you rather I find you a book on Wellington?"  
  
"I don't want to read about him, either. I want the one about the rabbit."  
  
The emotion flickered across Irons' features too quickly to identify. "That book was disposed of quite some time ago."  
  
He frowned. "But Ian said it was here."  
  
"Ian was incorrect. Choose another book and go back to bed." Irons turned away, walking back to the windows.  
  
He could feel the sadness, like an unexpected shadow cast by a moving cloud. And he knew it was for the other Ian, but he did not know what he could do about it. I'm here, he wanted to tell Irons. I know I'm not real. But I could be. You made him real.  
  
You loved him.  
  
Finally, he offered, "If you can't sleep, I can stay up with you."  
  
Irons turned, himself once more. "I have allowed you an uncharacteristic amount of license because of the treatment. Do not get used to it. It will not continue."  
  
He was curious. "When will it run out?"  
  
"I think right about now."  
  
Irons shoved the book on Napoleon into his hands and propelled him out of the library, watching to make sure he went back upstairs. When he got back to his room, he threw the book against the far wall, hearing it hit with a satisfying crack. He would be punished when Irons found out, but he did not care.  
  
He wanted the book about the rabbit.  
  
As a further protest, he pulled out all the covers from their neatly tucked corners and wadded them up into a cocoon with himself in the middle.  
  
(You didn't tell him.)  
  
Ian stood beside the bed.  
  
He peered out from under the blankets. "I forgot."  
  
(You have to tell him. You promised.)  
  
"He'll be mad."  
  
Ian just looked at him. Waiting.  
  
A warrior's word was his honor. He squirmed out of bed, and opened the door to his room. And stopped. Irons had ordered all the lights turned out in the hallway, no doubt to keep him from leaving the room once more. He drew back from the cavernous expanse.  
  
"It's all dark."  
  
(Use your feelings. They'll tell you if anything's out there. That's why the Witchblade gave them to you.)  
  
Forcing himself to concentrate, he let his consciousness expand around him as he felt his way along the hallway. No terrors leapt out of the shadows, and gradually, the fear subsided.. He began to sense objects, tables, statues, not quite seeing them, but knowing what and where they were. By the time he reached the library, he was walking almost normally, although he still avoided any darker alcoves. With the greatest of care, he eased open the door, making no more noise than the exhalation of his own breath.  
  
Nonetheless, Irons heard him.  
  
"This must be a dream. Not even you would be foolish enough to get out of bed a second time."  
  
Heart in his throat, he approached the form seated once more in the shadows. "I was supposed to tell you something."  
  
Irons' voice was dangerously quiet. "From whom?"  
  
"From Ian."  
  
Quieter still. "And what did Ian wish you to tell me?"  
  
He swallowed. And forced the words out. "It was an accident. He was just playing." He swallowed again. "He wanted me to tell you he's sorry. He didn't mean to leave you. He didn't mean to die."  
  
He heard Irons rise from the chair, felt him looming over him. He braced himself for an explosion of wrath.  
  
"And do you think you actually see this 'Ian'?" Irons asked almost casually.  
  
"I don't know! Everything is in my head. When I see him, it feels like he's really there. But he's dead." He looked up at Irons. "He tells me things I don't remember. Like about the rabbit. And...and that he loved you."  
  
He waited, but Irons said nothing, only stood above him as still and unapproachable as one of the many statues. A great knot of sadness was pressing against his breastbone, but he could not tell if it was Irons', or Ian's, or his own. Finally, he offered tearfully,  
  
"I'm sorry I always make you mad."  
  
Irons still did not answer.  
  
"Maybe if I was real like Ian-"  
  
"ENOUGH!" With a visible struggle, Irons checked himself. "Enough of this talk of being 'real'! I will hear no more of it!"  
  
The tears brimmed over.  
  
"And do not start crying. I've had quite enough of that, as well!" Then, in an unexpectedly gentle tone, Irons repeated, "Just...stop crying."  
  
Obediently, he wiped his cheeks with his pajama sleeve.  
  
Irons regarded him for a long, cryptic moment. "When I told you that you had no soul, my words were injudicious, spoken in anger. I should not have troubled you with that question. You do not yet have the intellectual capacity or the education to reason it out."  
  
Trying to please Irons, he insisted, "Yes, I do."  
  
"No, you do not. When you do, we will have this discussion again. Until that day, there will be no more talk of not having a soul. And from this moment, there will be no more talk of Ian. He is here only in the memories you were given."  
  
"But I see him."  
  
"I know. But he is in the past. Out of a mistaken idea of kindness, I allowed him far too much leniency. In the end, this kindness cost me very dearly. It is a mistake I will not repeat with you."  
  
"Ian wasn't a warrior."  
  
It was a moment before Irons spoke. "No. He was only a child."  
  
Things were blurring; he was himself, but he was also suddenly smaller, looking up at an Irons dressed in a cardigan instead of the inevitable suit. Confused, he asked,  
  
"Did I have a tan pony?"  
  
"No. Ian did."  
  
Another image. "Who broke the blue vase?"  
  
"You did. You hurled one of your schoolbooks at Miss Gardiner. Unfortunately, she ducked."  
  
It came back to him. Irons had been very angry. The vase had been irreplaceable, whereas governesses...."Which one was Miss Gardiner?"  
  
"She came between the Frenchwoman and Mrs. Schrafft."  
  
He was still trying to place her when Irons said,  
  
"I think it would be best if you went back to your room. Before I start recalling why all the other ones left. And it would be best if this time, you stayed there."  
  
He did not move.  
  
"Did you hear me?"  
  
"Yes, but-but sir?"  
  
As he looked up at Irons, his legs trembled. But stronger even than the fear was the ache in his chest. In a shaking voice, he asked,  
  
"Sir? Have you decided?"  
  
"Decided what?"  
  
"Whether or not to keep me."  
  
Irons did not answer.  
  
His whole small being hung desperately on the answer to that question. He could not read Irons' face, or thoughts, or what his fate would be. So he just waited.  
  
After what seemed an eternity, Irons reached down and brushed a lock of hair back from his cheek. "I am not a kind man, Ian." Irons' hand moved down to rest upon his shoulder. "You know this."  
  
Yes. He knew. As he knew also that Irons was not a good man, not according to either the morals in his books, or to a deeper code that he understood only in his dreams. It did not matter. Irons had created him. It was not for a creation to judge its god.  
  
"You must try very hard not to vex me. I dislike having to chastise you, but it is for your own good. And ultimately, for mine. Steel must be forged to make a sword. As you must be forged into the instrument of my will. Do you understand?"  
  
He did not have to understand. He would do anything to please Irons, to be allowed to stay and not be cast out into the darkness.  
  
It was said almost with regret. "I know what you want. I cannot give it to you." Irons released him. "Go, Ian."  
  
Irons sat down once more.  
  
He waited another moment, as long as he dared, hoping against everything that Irons would look his way once more. But Irons never moved.  
  
Head bowed in despair, he turned and left the library.  
  
Irons had told him that Ian was only in his memories. But when he came to the stairs, he found Ian waiting for him, holding Benjie.  
  
"You had him. I was looking for him."  
  
(I've come to say good-bye.)  
  
"Why can't you stay? Nobody can see you but me."  
  
(I was just waiting for someone to tell him. Now I have to go.)  
  
"I don't want you to."  
  
(You have my memories. You can always see me there.)  
  
"Don't go," he pleaded.  
  
But Ian was gone. Leaving him alone in the darkness of Irons' mansion.  
  
He was supposed to return to his room, but instead he sat on the bottom stair, lost. And with an aching hole where he had always thought he had a soul. He pressed his hand to the spot, but the pain would not go away. For the first time, he realized what it was:  
  
Loneliness.  
  
It would be all right, he told himself. Wilson would come back soon. She would take him upstairs to the nursery, and read to him until he fell asleep. He envisioned her ruddy face, and her rough hands that were nonetheless always gentle with him, and her kind eyes. When she came, the ache would go away. Wilson loved him.  
  
Then he remembered. Wilson had loved Ian.  
  
Not him.  
  
Into his confusion, a memory came.  
  
(He was hiding behind the big chair in the nursery, when someone grabbed him and swung him up into the air. "Come here, you scamp." He laughed as Irons held him up toward the ceiling, pretending to be cross with him. With Wilson looking on proudly, Irons sat him down and asked him what he had learned in his lessons that day, responding to each small accomplishment with fond approval. When he was done, Irons asked him which story he wanted to hear that night. There were dozens of books lined up on his shelf, but as usual he asked for his favorite, the one about the rabbit. Once again, Irons feigned displeasure, but finally, he and Benjie settled themselves on Irons' lap, and Irons opened the well-worn cover and began to read.)  
  
Like its shadow, another memory followed, this one his own, of standing before Irons on the patterned carpet in the great room, trying desperately not to fidget, or speak out of turn, or do anything at all. The woman currently assigned to care for him had promised that if he did anything to displease Mr. Irons, she would give him what for when she got him back upstairs again. To make sure he understood, she had picked up the switch she used and dealt him a blow across the back of his legs. It still stung, but he dared not rub the welts, for Mr. Irons was asking him questions, questions he knew he had to answer promptly and correctly, or there would be consequences. It seemed there were always consequences. Finally, he risked a peek up at the figure looming over him. And found Irons cold and unsmiling, more so than usual. Yesterday, there had been noise, Irons told the woman. Irons had heard him. Irons did not wish to hear him. As he tried to vanish within his stiff new suit, he heard the woman promise Irons she would make sure it never happened again.  
  
He did not understand. He was the same as Ian-better than Ian. He was stronger, and smarter, and he had the gifts given him by the Witchblade. He tried as hard as he could in his schoolwork, and in his martial training, to do what Irons expected of him.  
  
But Irons had loved Ian. Not him.  
  
No one loved him.  
  
He did not care. He did not need love, or friends. Or a rabbit. He was going to be a warrior. He already had a sword, a blade of great honor. Someday, his spirit would be imprinted upon that blade with those of the other warriors. He did not need love. Or a soul.  
  
But the tears came all the same.  
  
He wanted Wilson.  
  
He wanted-  
  
He buried his face in his arms.  
  
No one in this world wanted him. Only Irons. He had been created to serve Irons, his existence dependent upon his usefulness. To that end, Irons meted out punishment, and more rarely, approval, a relationship he had never questioned for he had known nothing else. Until they gave him Ian's memories. And for the first time, he felt what it was like to be loved. Ian's memories spilled like a wash of color and warmth into his own stark history, all the more poignant because they were not his. He wondered at them, and at the feelings they evoked in his heart. Feelings he did not entirely understand, but which were there nonetheless. The loneliness grew, until he could hardly breathe through the pain just behind his breastbone. He wanted Wilson.  
  
He wanted-  
  
He raised his head once more.  
  
Without consciously willing it, he rose and stumbled, half-seeing, back down the corridor to the library. As he felt his way along, he began to tremble again, for Irons would be angry. But even a blow was preferable to this terrible aloneness.  
  
But when he pushed open the door a third time, Irons was not there.  
  
He did not know how long he stood there, feeling as though his heart was going to break inside his chest. Finally, he found his way down the stairs into the great room. There, he took down the katana and brought it to the hearth. A few embers remained; he knelt before them, holding the sheathed sword, and tried to take comfort from the spirits of the other warriors. But the ache remained.  
  
He searched the darkness behind him, hoping to see a small form emerge. "Ian?" He called out several times, but Ian did not come. None of them came, not even the one who was to be. He was alone. He was always alone. But he would not cry. He would not.  
  
He wiped his face once more with his pajama sleeve.  
  
And found himself looking up to the railing.  
  
Irons had told him to stay off it. But Irons was not there. So it did not matter what he did.  
  
He climbed up onto the railing once more, sitting on the metal bar, his bare feet dangling out over the room below. This was where Ian had fallen. He felt again that one brief moment of terror and surprise. And wondered what had come afterwards. Irons had told him he saw Ian only in his memories, but Irons was wrong. After death, Ian still existed. But Ian had had a soul. Ian had been real.  
  
He was not.  
  
Leaning out still farther, he looked down at the waiting darkness. And wondered where you went when you did not have a soul.  
  
"Ian. Did I not tell you to stay off that railing?"  
  
Irons' voice, deliberately casual. As though Irons was reminding him to wear his sweater.  
  
Mesmerized by the darkness, he did not look in the direction of the voice. "I'm remembering."  
  
"Remembering what?"  
  
"What it's like to die. Just in case."  
  
He could feel a turmoil of anger and alarm beneath the surface of Irons' voice. "In case of what?"  
  
"In case you decide not to keep me."  
  
Irons tried reason. "I haven't decided anything. Come down from the railing and go back to bed."  
  
Everything was getting confused again, himself and Ian. "I can't leave yet. I'm waiting for Wilson. She said she'd be right back." His voice sounded strange in his own ears, younger, and with Parsons' accent. "I dropped Benjie, but I can't see him. It's black as treacle down there."  
  
"I'll get him for you. Just get down. Carefully."  
  
He leaned still farther out, bracing one foot against a crosspiece. "He fell over by the big chair, where you're sitting." Then he realized Irons' voice was coming from the balcony behind him. He twisted, asking, "How did you-"  
  
Irons pulled him backwards off the railing.  
  
Though his feet were again solidly on the carpet, Irons did not let go of his wrist. He could feel Irons' wrath through that contact; it only deepened his confusion. Irons was never angry with him. Now, Irons was hurting him, and he did not know why.  
  
"But-I didn't fall this time! I was careful, wasn't I, sir? Wasn't I?" When Irons did not answer, he began to cry, "I want Wilson!"  
  
The images exploded in his mind, of Wilson tearfully insisting that she had left him only for a few moments, that she had always told him never, ever to climb up onto the railing. And then of Irons raising his hand-  
  
Irons let go of his wrist.  
  
Ian had fallen and died. He remembered it. But he was not Ian, he was...he did not know. He looked up at Irons through welling tears.  
  
"Why did you do this to me, sir?"  
  
Irons still did not answer.  
  
He stood there, sobbing. It hurt. More than anything had ever hurt. Part of him knew there was no one to console him. But another part of him only wanted Mr. Irons. The world was dissolving into a blur of Ian's memories; inside, he too was dissolving. There was only one constant left him. With a final, desperate sob, he reached out trustingly and wrapped his arms around the unmoving Irons, burying his face against Irons' chest.  
  
And was immediately horrified at what he had just done. As he clung to the silk robe, he braced himself for Irons' wrath. But Irons did not strike away his arms. Instead, he heard Irons sigh.  
  
Then, to his surprise, Irons enfolded him in turn, albeit somewhat stiffly. And said, "You have done nothing for the past three days but exasperate me."  
  
"I'm sorry," he sobbed into the heavy silk.  
  
"You never used to cry like this before."  
  
"I never used to be Ian before!"  
  
He felt Irons sigh a second time. Then, Irons' arms slipped around him more securely, Irons' hand coming up to cradle his tear-stained cheek. In a quiet voice he had never before heard, Irons said, "Just calm down. Nothing is as bad as it seems."  
  
Yes, it was. And beneath the calm of Irons' words, he could feel that Irons too was disquieted. Even as Irons held him, he knew part of Irons was far away, reliving memories Irons had thought buried with Ian. Seeing other scenes and existences through the Witchblade that he could only sense, like echoes down a long, darkened hallway. Out of that other place, he heard Irons admit, "I did not foresee this consequence. Perhaps the Doctor was right. You may have been too young."  
  
It was not an apology. But slowly, his tears subsided. The touch of Irons' hand helped drive the other memories back to the edges of his thoughts, until he was certain who he was again, Ian only a faint shadow. Through that contact, he felt the strength of Irons' will, as well as other things he did not think Irons intended him to see. Things about himself. Wondering at them, he almost did not hear Irons ask,  
  
"Do you know who you are now?"  
  
"Mostly."  
  
"Are you feeling better?"  
  
"It still hurts."  
  
"What hurts?"  
  
"The hole in my chest."  
  
Whatever guilt or sympathy Irons felt was rapidly vanishing. "What hole in your chest? Where?"  
  
"The one where you took away my soul."  
  
"I did not-" Irons restrained himself. "I did not take away your soul. You either have one, or you don't. It has nothing to do with me."  
  
He just continued to clutch at Irons' robe.  
  
"I have given you a venerable and very expensive sword, I've allowed you to stuff yourself with processed sugar-I've even tolerated your disobeying me by leaving your room. And still you tell me your chest hurts."  
  
"It does."  
  
"And what do you think it will take to make it stop hurting?"  
  
He told him.  
  
And felt Irons start in surprise.  
  
Thinking he had pushed Irons too far, he began to shake once more. But again, Irons surprised him, saying nothing, just continuing to hold him.  
  
The lights came on. La Roche walked into the library, carrying a large flashlight. And stopped in surprise. "You found him, sir."  
  
"Apparently that is more than you were able to do."  
  
"Yes, sir." La Roche regarded the unexpected tableau. And asked carefully, "Another nightmare, sir?"  
  
"That is not your concern. I have an errand for you." Irons proceeded to tell La Roche what was to be done.  
  
"But-sir!" La Roche protested. "Do you know what time it is?"  
  
"The hour should provide no difficulty for one of your talents. I believe I was quite explicit as to what is required. One hour should be sufficient; after two, I will begin to wonder if you misrepresented your abilities when I hired you."  
  
"Yes, sir." La Roche left.  
  
Irons released him. Then tilted his head back until his eyes met Irons' gaze.  
  
"That," Irons declared with finality, "should take care of you."  
  
* * *  
  
It was later still.  
  
Irons was reading Blake aloud.  
  
His customary position was seated on the floor at Irons' feet. But somehow, he had ended up curled on the leather sofa next to Irons, Irons' robe draped over his shoulders, Irons' voice shaping his half-waking dreams. The fire in the great room cast wavering shadows that echoed the images of Jerusalem, and Los, and Albion's specter. Starry wheels revolved in his mind's eye, driven by the well-modulated cadences. Interspersed with those images were other specters, of professors in long gowns, and classmates running through the college yards in flannels and high collars, and girls with bobbed hair and beaded dresses. Specters from Irons' past. Irons was remembering them, remembering cricket matches, and punting on a meandering river, and reading forbidden manuscripts into the small hours of the morning. Remembering them not with nostalgia, or regret, but with self- satisfied triumph.  
  
The images dispersed. La Roche had returned.  
  
"I have it, sir. As you specified."  
  
Irons glanced at one of the clocks. "Under two hours. You begin to redeem yourself."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"Place it on the table." Amicably. "You may go now. You'll need to be back down at five to retest the security cameras."  
  
La Roche was learning to keep his emotions out of his voice. "Yes, sir."  
  
Irons rose, dislodging him. He sat up, blinking as Blake's verses faded from his mind. "Sir?"  
  
Irons returned, and placed something in his arms. "Here. Now are you happy?"  
  
It had long, soft brown fur, and a black nose and whiskers, and big ears that flopped at an inquisitive angle. And wise brown eyes that peered up into his. He clutched it, the fur tickling his cheek. And felt something flood into the hole in his chest.  
  
"Benjie!"  
  
"No," Irons corrected him. "Benjie was Ian's rabbit. This one is yours. Perhaps you can call it Napoleon."  
  
"Perhaps." He would call it whatever Irons dictated.  
  
But its name was Benjie.  
  
"Do you feel able to sleep now?"  
  
He nodded. Then frowned. "Can I still keep the sword?"  
  
Once again, Irons' patience was thinning. "Yes, you may still keep the sword."  
  
He felt a gleam of satisfaction.  
  
Irons had never given Ian a sword.  
  
This time, Irons escorted him back to his room. The book on Napoleon was still lying against the wall where he had thrown it. Irons picked it up. And looked at him.  
  
He was unable to meet Irons' gaze. "It fell."  
  
"Did your bed fall as well?"  
  
When he did not answer, Irons set the book down on the nightstand. "I think tomorrow you will spend the day in your room, reading, instead of at the firing range. Perhaps things will not be so quick to fall next time."  
  
Irons also insisted that he remake the bed. But his efforts were hampered by fatigue, and by his refusal to put Benjie down. Finally, Irons himself pulled the covers straight, tucking them in tightly around him, no doubt to keep him in bed this time.  
  
"Does your chest still hurt?" Irons asked.  
  
"No. It's better now."  
  
He still had no soul. But he had something to love, something he had not known he lacked until they gave him Ian's memories. And though his nine- year-old mind knew it was only a thing of fur and stuffing, his five-year- old one was quite certain Benjie was real, and that Benjie loved him in turn. He cuddled against Benjie's reassuring warmth.  
  
Irons reached down a hand. "Time to put your rabbit away and go to sleep."  
  
He clutched Benjie more tightly. "He doesn't want to be put away."  
  
With considerable exasperation. "It is a stuffed animal. It isn't real."  
  
He stared up at Irons. "Neither am I."  
  
Irons stared down at him.  
  
They were still at war. A war he sensed he was doomed to lose, but which he fought nonetheless, struggling against a will and an intelligence stronger than his own. But in that war, there were moments of truce. Moments when he did not have to worry about displeasing Irons, or being cast out into the darkness. Moments when he was not a soulless experiment, or a little freak, but only Ian. Even as he wrapped his arms around Benjie, he knew that Irons would use this gift against him in some future battle. Just as he would use the memories of Ian he had unwittingly awakened in Irons. But for now, there was an armistice between them, him and Irons.  
  
Irons seemed to find it as awkward as he did. Finally, Irons asked, "Do you want your light on?"  
  
Stoically, he declared, "I'm not afraid of the dark anymore."  
  
Irons did not seem convinced. "Suppose I put it on anyway?"  
  
There had been several mutually unpleasant bouts with nightmares before the Doctor had brought the lamp. Irons switched it on, and waves of rainbows began to play across the walls and ceiling. Part of him tried to stay awake, to hold onto this truce as long as possible. But his eyes were closing, the rainbows playing now inside his mind. He curled more tightly around Benjie, so that Irons would not take away the rabbit while he slept. Dimly, he knew Irons was still standing over him; in a last lucid moment, he wondered who it was that Irons gazed down upon, himself or Ian. But the answer never came to him.  
  
Something brushed his cheek-Irons' hand-resting there a moment.  
  
"'s name's Benjie," he murmured into his pillow.  
  
He might have heard Irons counter with goodnight. But the rainbows were carrying him into sleep.  
  
And as he slept, he dreamed, not the terrifying visions brought him by the Witchblade, but of his own room, seeing its walls brightly hung once more with whimsical animals spelling out the alphabet, its ceiling supporting a mobile of aeroplanes that spun lazily above his bed. The big chair where Mr. Irons always sat was back in its corner, and the stark desk with his schoolbooks was replaced by a child-sized table covered with crayon marks, and library paste, and drawings of Wilson, and Mr. Irons, and Benjie. In his dream, he lay not under a plain coverlet, but under his blanket with the horses and cowboys. And he knew that Wilson was just in the next room, and that she would come in and wake him in the morning to go ride his pony. Ian's memories, but it was he who now experienced them within the dream, Benjie tucked securely beside him on his pillow.  
  
And in his dream, he too was real. 


End file.
